


ask me tomorrow

by tkreyesevandiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Caring Evan "Buck" Buckley, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drunkenness, Emotional Eddie Diaz, I think it's a little crack-ish?, I'm not sure what this is, M/M, Mentions of Christopher, Mentions of alcohol, Sentence Starter, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Worried Evan "Buck" Buckley, it's definitely soft and fluffy too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24320536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: Eddie's struggling to adjust to Christopher going to summer camp, especially after a rough call involving a kid.Buck might have the perfect solution, but it doesn't quite go the way he wants it to...Sentence Starter:"Are you that desperate?" "For you, yes."
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 32
Kudos: 345





	ask me tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not ready to let go of my drunk!Eddie xD This is actually not that angsty, it's not really hurt/comfort. It kinda fits everywhere, you know? It's even a little humorous? I don't know xD
> 
> This is not beta'd so any errors are my own. Rated Teen for the alcohol, a slight mention of a child injury and for a few double meaning things xD
> 
> Thank you to @theleftboobgrabber for requesting this on Tumblr! It took a bit for this to come to me, but I hope you like it!!

Buck could feel the exhaustion deep in his bones.

They’d had a pretty rough call today, another one involving kids where they’d come unfairly close to losing one of them. Thankfully, they hadn’t but the sheer possibility of it all stuck to the whole crew. It didn’t go anywhere.

Anyone who said that firefighters, paramedics, police officers, doctors forgot their patients, victims or calls? They didn’t know what they were talking about.

The thing first responders were very well-versed in doing was fine-tuning their mind into focusing on their current calls, but the sheer amount of hypotheticals stayed with them for _life_ , even if everything had been okay in the end. 

Seeing that Christopher was off at camp, and Eddie couldn’t hug his kid into next year after the rough call, Buck decided to self-invite himself over to the Diaz household. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been practically living there for the past week, anyway. 

Eddie was increasingly snappy now that he missed the kid and didn’t know what to do with himself. While Buck missed Christopher too, he was beginning to miss his _sane_ best friend more. The crew was one cross comment away from locking him in the supply closet, or just giving him the entire of next week off so they didn’t have to deal with Eddie’s irritation.

“I bring beer and good tidings!” Buck declared as he walked into the Diaz household with a case of Eddie’s favourite beer.

“Oh thank _God,_ ” Eddie groaned, getting up from the couch to take the case from him without another word to Buck.

He stood there for a minute with empty hands, glaring at his friend’s back as he shrugged his jacket off. “‘Hi, Buck.’ ‘How are you, Buck?’ ‘I wish I had a friend as awesome as you, Buck.’” He did his best imitation of Eddie’s gruff voice, raising an eyebrow at him as he plopped down.

“Get over it,” Eddie snorted, popping the tops off two beers and passing him one. He had the decency to look slightly sheepish anyway. 

Buck laughed and took the beer while Eddie turned on a movie for them. 

It was one of those mindless entertainment things, embellished with horrible jokes and otherworldly puns. They joked as they normally did about any movie, keeping each other entertained with a steady stream of outlandish commentary. 

It was when the credits started rolling that Buck noticed that he was on his second beer and Eddie was on his _fourth_. The case was torn open haphazardly, empty bottles littering the center table. All six bottles were gone.

He frowned at the sight of it. Eddie never drank this much, and Buck wasn’t sure about how he felt about Eddie going off the rails because his son was gone for two weeks.

Turning his head to his friend, he was surprised when he saw Eddie’s face flushed, with his pupils dilated. His head was resting on the back of the couch, and he was softly singing something in between hiccups and sips of beer.

He had no idea Eddie was such a lightweight. But then again, he’d never seen him drink more than two beers either.

“Okay, bud, I think it’s time to get you to bed.” Buck heaved himself up from his slouched position to set the near-empty bottle back on the table. Eddie startled like he’d forgotten Buck was even there. Suddenly, there were tears slipping down his cheeks which alarmed him to the core, panic bubbling in him as he hovered over his best friend. “Eddie?! What happened?”

“I just miss him so much,” Eddie whined tearfully. Buck let out a whoosh of breath, marginally relieved, before scooting closer to put an arm around his shoulders. “Did you know he has all these blonde curls that don’t stay in place and I have to gel them down in the morning? I don’t know what to do with myself in the mornings now. Where's the _routine_?”

Buck's lips quirked up slightly. This was just plain sad, but Buck missed Christopher too. And he could sense Eddie needed this, so he let the distraught father continue on. “And he knows I can’t cook for shit but he’s the sweetest kid in the entire world, and never complains when we have things like pizza, cereal, sandwiches for meals. Though you fixed _that_ too.”

Buck couldn’t fathom what else he’d fixed, but he had definitely taken to purposefully making larger batches whenever he cooked so he could give it to Diaz boys. It was his and Christopher’s little secret. Well, it had been; clearly, they weren’t as slick as they thought they were.

Eddie blubbered against his shoulder as he waxed more poetry about his son. “The house is so quiet without his laugh and the sound of his crutches. And he calls me _Daddy_ in that little, cute voice of his and I just _miss_ him.”

“I know, sweetheart. I miss Christopher, too.”

“How do you know I’m talking about Christopher?” Eddie pushed away from him to narrow his eyes suspiciously, swaying precariously in place. Buck cocked his head, thoroughly confused. Didn't he just mention a kid?

“You got someone else who calls you Daddy?” For some reason, that made Eddie flush a brighter red and mutter ‘no’ under his breath. It was only a few seconds later that Buck figured out why, his face turning the same shade of scarlet as an awkward silence settled between them. 

They sat quietly for a while after that, both of them finishing off the remainders of their bottles before Eddie dramatically spoke again. “I’m doing it. I’m driving to the stupid camp _right now_ and bringing him home.”

Buck resigned himself to a night of hiding keys and keeping Eddie in check.

“Eddie, it’s hardly been a week.”

“I haven’t been apart from him for this long since I came back from my last tour.” Ah, so this is what the real root of the issue was.

“He’s _fine_ , Eddie. Kids love summer camps, and you’ve seen all the photos _and_ you’ve talked to him on the phone. Christopher’s happy and he’s having a great time, which is more than can be said about you.” Buck got up to grab a water bottle, easily replacing the now-empty beer bottle. Eddie begrudgingly took a sip when Buck glowered at him. “Pretty sure he left with you clear instructions. He’ll be back before you know it.”

“But I _miss_ him.” There was a level of petulance in his voice that he usually associated purely with drunk people or toddlers. Both of which Buck was excellent in dealing with.

“And he misses you too, but you’ve drunk four beers, you’re in no condition to drive and Christopher won’t like his ex-army dad showing up in the middle of the night.”

“Six.”

“What?”

Eddie cleared his throat before speaking lower, his chin resting on his chest, bottom lip extended in a slight pout as he stared at Buck from the side of his eye. Now he looked less drunk and more toddler. “I had six beers. Two before you came.”

A wash of anger swirled through him but he tamped down on it immediately. Eddie was a grown man, and could deal with his own decisions. Still, he felt a little blindsided by the change of events, and a little off-kilter at Eddie being an emotional drunk.

“I want to go pick up Christopher. Buck, you can drive. _Please_.” Eddie turned to him with pleading eyes. No, he really couldn’t drive. It didn’t matter if he’d only had two beers in as many hours, but there was no chance in hell he was taking his overprotective best friend to a children’s summer camp. Christopher would never forgive him, so Eddie’s puppy-dog eyes could go to hell.

 **“Are you really that desperate?”** Buck asked. The question made Eddie perk up and before he knew it, he had a lap full of drunk Texan who’d just finished sobbing, completely wrapped around him like a koala.

There wasn’t much he could do as Eddie stared at him with wide eyes before dropping his head. Buck stiffened as Eddie bullied his way into the space between his neck and shoulder, just snuggling in there. **“For you, yes.”**

The words were punctuated with a punishing nip to his ear and an apologetic swipe of his tongue against the bite. 

This was dangerous. This was very, very dangerous.

Buck wasn’t even tipsy but Eddie was flat-out incapacitated. He was doing things that he normally wouldn’t have done. Buck was no stranger to drunken encounters, but he wasn’t about to do this with Eddie. There was just too much at risk, even if his body didn't seem to get the memo.

“I was talking about your son.”

“I miss him,” Eddie repeated, not moving from his perch. Buck sighed and relaxed under him, jostling Eddie into a more comfortable position. “The kid’s name today was Christine.”

The words were spoken so quietly that Buck almost missed them, despite the fact that Eddie’s mouth was right next to his ear. He smoothed an encouraging hand down the bumps of Eddie’s spine through the T-shirt, feeling the older man’s hot breath tickle his collarbone. 

“She was terrified when she came to, in the ambulance. I tried to calm her down by asking her name, her favourite animal, and all that. Keep her awake.” Buck didn’t know that; he’d been with Bobby in the truck. They’d needed an extra hand in the paramedic circuit, so Eddie had gone with Hen and Chimney.

Christine hadn’t gotten the time to hit the brakes on her bicycle and had flown head-first over the handlebar, landing hard on her head. She hadn’t been wearing a helmet, and the impact had been on concrete. They’d lost her pulse near immediately, and it was scary to think that her family could have lost their daughter today if they had been a mere ten seconds late.

The girl was only eight. Buck could still see splotches of her blood on his uniform, which wasn't an image he wanted to dredge up right now.

“Her name just..reminded me of Christopher. And how he’s doing activities like that at summer camp where I’m not there to supervise, and I’m...I’m not ready to deal with that,” Eddie whispered. Slowly, Buck lifted his arms to wrap Eddie in a hug, his frown settling on his face.

“You know…” Buck started, searching for words. “I don’t know how scary it is to let your child do things like that, but you know it’s important for Christopher’s independence. The camp has people trained for kids with special needs, and they're all professionals. And he was just telling me the other day how happy he was that you let him go.”

“I don’t regret it, I just wish I was better prepared for this.” Eddie pulled back to look at him with bloodshot eyes. “Look at me; I’m a mess over only fourteen days without him. I stayed hundreds of days without him on all my tours, and this is just pathetic. And hypocritical.”

“Eddie, you need to stop being so hard on yourself,” Buck admonished gently. “Look, right now, let’s get you into bed, okay?”

He helped Eddie up, wrapping an arm around his waist to stop him from stumbling into the walls. The drunk man started singing that same song again. Now that Buck was closer, he could tell that it was a lullaby of some sort. 

“What’s that you’re singing?” Buck asked as he got Eddie situated in bed. 

“Spanish lullaby. Chris’ favourite.” He teared up again at that. “My little boy’s growing up too fast for me.”

Buck smiled softly, wiping a stray tear from Eddie’s cheek as he took a seat on the side of the bed. “We all grow up, but he’s growing up to be a wonderful person because of you.”

“Doesn’t feel like enough.” He shifted suddenly on the bed, curling around Buck’s torso so Eddie’s head was on his thigh and his legs were folded behind Buck’s back. His arms were around Buck’s waist, holding tightly to the shirt on the other side. 

It was shockingly vulnerable. Buck couldn’t help but lift a hand to card through Eddie’s hair. With each swipe of his fingers, the older man relaxed a little more until he was completely pliant.

Seeing that Eddie’s breath had evened out, Buck quietly detached his limbs to rearrange him on the bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. He was so busy tracing the sleepy lines of Eddie’s face and rustled hair - all making him look far too young - that he didn’t notice that the man was still awake.

“Will you stay with me?” Eddie asked quietly, gaze fluttering open to look at him with hazy eyes.

A lump formed in his throat at the unwavering trust on his best friend’s expression, but he somehow found it in him to decline the open invitation. If Eddie still wanted Buck sober, he had him.

“Ask me tomorrow.”

The answer was significant, hurtling both of them over the wall of inhibitions they’d erected between them. For now, Buck only smiled and patted his hip over the comforter, getting up to leave.

“For the record, I will always want you,” Eddie said sleepily as he drifted off, leaving Buck frozen in the doorway, door jamb clenched tight in his fist.

He smiled a little wider at it, letting out a soft laugh as he propped Eddie’s door almost all the way shut.

Yeah. He’d always want Eddie, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!! I can't let go of drunk!Eddie whatsoever so y'all are just gonna have to put up with me. ALSO I don't drink so sorry if this is a little inaccurate. I used a drunk calculator (don't laugh at me jsksj)
> 
> The prompt list can be found [here](https://zeethebooknerd.tumblr.com/post/618398552326062080/prompt-list), and my inbox is always open for Buddie xD (it might take me a bit but I'll get there eventually xD)
> 
> Kudos and Comments make my day, so thank you to everyone who leaves them!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


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